From the Pastor’s Desk – November 2023

I found this on Facebook.  A pastor/friend of mine shared it.  This is interesting reading and, in my opinion, so true.

NO, YOU AREN’T TAKING THE BIBLE LITERALLY

No, you are not taking the Bible literally when you judge members of your human family claiming “that’s what the Bible says.”

What you are doing is taking your own understanding of an English translation as if it were the original text in its original context.

Because you do not speak the biblical languages, nor know the historical and cultural contexts of a text, you are taking the broken pieces of your own superficial understanding and arranging them into a mosaic that says more about you than the original text.

The purpose of scripture is not to replace our living hearts and minds with an orthodoxy inherited from the graveyards of the dead.  We do not read ancient texts to return to some earlier and more immature understandings but to learn from the past so we can grow into something even better.

Read without reason scripture will be distorted into memorized and cliched interpretations drawn from our own marginal understanding of a text.

Read without love scripture will become an assault weapon used against those whom we personally disapprove of in our own day.

Read without a sense of personal responsibility scripture means surrendering to the understanding of clergy who may know no more about life’s mysteries than we.

There is a reason that, in the biblical story when the tempter wanted to lure Jesus from the path of truth and love, he (the tempter) brought along a Bible.  Nothing takes one further from the call to universal love than taking ink on paper as if it were the living word.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Pastor Cory